Ashen Rot
The ashen rot is a very rare flesh eating virus with origins on Jundarre. It is known and feared for its ability to “melt” and contort skin and muscle leaving it with a flakey, charcoal-like consistency. Almost all mammals and most birds are susceptible to the ashen rot. Symptoms The disease starts with simple discomfort which evolves into searing muscle pain, usually in the arms or legs. Within around eight hours of the muscle pain, the affected skin will begin to warp, becoming very callous and turning either very dark or very pale. Between this and the next stage the limb will usually become unusable, however in milder cases only one side of the limb will freeze up like this leaving the muscles on the other side fully functional. As more time passes, the affected area will warp even more, during this time the “melting” pieces of skin and muscles will often glow with an orange heat; this heat is often what will kill the affected individual, as the skin may sometimes be hot enough that the wound could immolate him or objects around him. If the affected survives this stage, they have survived the virus which usually dies if it’s unable to move on to another suitable feast. Treatment & Transmission There is no devised one hundred percent cure for the ashen rot. The common treatment is usually to amputate and burn the affected limb, first giving it an acid bath to burn away all affected flesh. Oddly enough, the virus seems to be unable to transmit through fine or layered cloth, so silk is usually in high demand by sawbones who work in areas where the rot crops up more often. The rot is a skin-contact virus, and will transmit to anything it considers edible that it comes into immediate contact with. It is not safe to directly touch anything with the virus immediately visibly on, this includes parts of your own body. Oddly the virus eats through its own fuel very quickly, isolating itself from being able to spread, so severing the offending part of the body early after detection could easily lead to the prolonged lifespan of the infected. Incubation and Hibernation Ashen rot usually shows its ugly face around a half a month after initial infection. During this time it can be transmitted to anyone who has skin-to-skin contact with the infected area, but shows no symptoms until after the incubation period. The virus also seems to be able to hibernate for an innumerable period of time when given contact to certain minerals. It’s believed that it was initially contracted with an explorer on Jundarre brushed up against a rock with the hibernating virus on it. Inception and Range of Influence It's hard to believe that such a malicious disease could be something that commonly evolved on the surface of Jundarre, which leads most experts to agree that it must have been the development of some kind of magically tempered biological warfare made dormant after whatever left the planet so barren. The virus has spread through the tubes by humanity, probably a few times, and has existed on Svol Nirin for a few decades now. The disease isolates itself so quickly that it's never wiped out more then a few hundred people at a time; cases of it crop up on such a small basis, only around a hundred a year; the disease is so easily taken care of that while the rot is gruesome it's not considered a huge threat as a plague.